Three of the most well-respected and successful hedge fund managers in the business are waving the white flag, in a sense.

Steven Cohen, Israel Englander and John Paulson are not riding the market turmoil, moving billion of dollars into cash during the ongoing financial monsoon. In recent days, Cohen has moved about half of SAC Capital Advisors’ $14 billion in assets into money-market funds and other short-term securities, according to The Wall Street Journal. Englander, whose Millennium Partners also manages $14 billion, has moved $6 billion into cash, while Paulson also has about 70% of his $35 billion Paulson & Co.’s assets in cash or cash equivalents.

What’s more, Cohen plans to stay out of the stock market until the end of the year, save for a small portfolio he personally trades, the Journal says.

The trio is part of an avalanche of about $400 billion in hedge fund assets recently moved into cash, according to Goldman Sachs. The sell-off by hedge funds contributed in part to the huge losses suffered by the stock market in recent weeks. Paul Tudor Jones of $18 billion Tudor Investment Corp. also made a big move into cash after watching the Mexican peso tumble at the beginning of the month, Bloomberg News reports.

According to the Journal, Cohen, whose flagship is down about 9% year-to-date, made the decision to ditch equities at the end of last month, selling nearly half of his firm’s stock holdings last week, including those of 50 SAC managers who “weren’t seeing the ball.” Paulson, by contrast, has been unwinding his positions throughout 2008.